D&D 5E Krynn's Free Feats: setting-specific or the future of the game?

[Micah Sweet]

intresting... so you are pro the game being HARDER to play and having more character deaths?

Yes, potentially. I want it to feel less like a stage play, and more like you're actually there.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yes, potentially. I want it to feel less like a stage play, and more like you're actually there.

I too want it to feel like you are there... I don't know anyone personally that is more pro stage play then that TBH... but I also don't like character overturn. If more then 1 character passes in a campaign it should be rare and meaningful in my eyes... and I NEVER want to go back to "Wow at game 16 not one of us is playing the charcter we had at game 1...and some of us aren't playing who we were in game 1 or game 9"

 

[Micah Sweet]

I too want it to feel like you are there... I don't know anyone personally that is more pro stage play then that TBH... but I also don't like character overturn. If more then 1 character passes in a campaign it should be rare and meaningful in my eyes... and I NEVER want to go back to "Wow at game 16 not one of us is playing the charcter we had at game 1...and some of us aren't playing who we were in game 1 or game 9"

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Played in a campaign once with 3 PCs over the whole thing. Had fun with all if them, didn't mind that they died.

 

[James Gasik]

the number of times I have seen Vampire games GRIND TO A SCREACHING HAULT mid story becuse a vampire has to spend a week spending blood and willpower just to get back his health and not be at -X to rolls is amazing... worse still when you try to play a game and get a character that gets Agg right out of the gate and you get to decided "Does every threat have to have fortitude, or can this 1 character just boom past defenses"

then again past editions of D&D did it too... 1 character has an AC 32, and 4 characters are all in the teens... to hit the 32 on anything other then a 19 or 20 you have a monster with +14 to hit... that auto hits all but 1 other party member on anything other than a 1...

Oh man, the feels on that one. My last PF1e game, I had a four man party, where 3 guys focused on defense, one simply refused to stand still and let monsters hit him, and would rather plink at things with his longbow or use Spring Attack to avoid counter attacks...and the last guy was a Fighter with a two-handed weapon who used Cleave and wanted to be enlarged in every fight, lowering his already mediocre AC by 4 points. Every fight, he'd go down and I didn't dare use enemies with lower to hit numbers because then the other characters would be invincible.

That's why I hoped 5e's bounded accuracy would solve that problem, but it only kind of does. You can still have a party where a character can have an AC above 20 and the supposedly melee-capable Ranger is rocking a 17.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Played in a campaign once with 3 PCs over the whole thing. Had fun with all if them, didn't mind that they died.

It isn't the death so much as the consistency of the campaign. I find that for the most part when party turn over is high is when people feel MORE disconnected form there character... that stage play feel you want to avoid, I get it when I am on my 3rd character, it is no longer a world I am emerged in, it is just a set of stats that could go away any minute now.

 

[James Gasik]

I think the real problem with easier deaths is you need to balance the game so that a full party isn't necessary to complete a mission, because the way it is now, if you do kill a party member off, everything gets dramatically harder, and depending on which one died, continuing might be impossible, so now you have to have "extra characters" to rotate in quickly, which can be just as troublesome for verisimilitude.

And really, what's the difference between your original character surviving til the very end or "Exact Clone # 34" surviving to the end?

 

[cbwjm]

Personally I like hit points better than damage tracks or wounds that slowly whittle your character down to uselessness, thus creating the infamous "death spiral" (as seen in Shadowrun, World of Darkness, or Star Wars: Saga Edition).

Even though those kinds of rules make combat healing more important, the idea that getting damaged makes it easier to take more damage really only works if the game supports you fleeing in terror with minimal reprisals- which is often not the case (and can be immersion-breaking when it is).

I'm the same nowadays. I may have briefly used some sort of critical wound table back in 2e, but ultimately, I'm against something that creates a death spiral, I want the game to be fun, and for my friends and I, that isn't fun.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It isn't the death so much as the consistency of the campaign. I find that for the most part when party turn over is high is when people feel MORE disconnected form there character... that stage play feel you want to avoid, I get it when I am on my 3rd character, it is no longer a world I am emerged in, it is just a set of stats that could go away any minute now.

It helped that every character was very different from the others. I certainly don't want Bob the 2nd of Fighteria.

The thing is, characters come and go, but the story they create in play goes on. The characters that survive carry the torch for the ones that fall.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the real problem with easier deaths is you need to balance the game so that a full party isn't necessary to complete a mission, because the way it is now, if you do kill a party member off, everything gets dramatically harder, and depending on which one died, continuing might be impossible, so now you have to have "extra characters" to rotate in quickly, which can be just as troublesome for verisimilitude.

And really, what's the difference between your original character surviving til the very end or "Exact Clone # 34" surviving to the end?

Number one, you don't play an exact clone. That's not an option at my table, and my players don't push for that anyway.

Number two, you build in ways in the game for new PCs to enter the game in case of death. That maintains yourselves of verisimilitude.

Number three, given the softball default of 5e combat, you have to push for there be a real risk of PC death in any case.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It helped that every character was very different from the others. I certainly don't want Bob the 2nd of Fighteria.

The thing is, characters come and go, but the story they create in play goes on. The characters that survive carry the torch for the ones that fall.

that is not my experence (bob son of bob brother of bob come to avenge the last 2 bobs not withstanding)

an example from forever and a day ago.

I was in a game that started with 4 players, I was a Druid, we had a Ranger, a Paliden, and a Sorcerer... very early (like level 2 or 3) we got 2 new players bringing us to 6, a rogue and a psiwarrior (we were a combat heavy party)... and when my druid died I decided to try a new class I just found in our newest book... a warlock. He lasted 2 sessions and died to a badly placed fireball. I brought in a mult classed cleric wizard mystic thurge... and we not only realized that not 1 PC from game 1 was left (druid, ranger paliden and sorcerer all died by this point) but I was NOT the one that had the most PCs (that rogue that joined early died then was reincarnated... then died and the player brought in a wizard that died in a blaze of glory... but he then made a half dragon (level adjustment) drow (level adjusment) cleric... and died in the first encounter he was in(since he was like 5ish HD behind everyone from LA) and now was a barbarian cleric... his barbarian cleric didn't have a back story. Neither did our new aasimar sorcerer, and I kind of had a simplistic paragraph about my mystic theurge...

we had all had detailed backgrounds at first. Each new character got a little less and less... and we even joked there was no reason to be on the quest we had handed down all these times...


the game just wasn't fun. Especially because as our Aasimar sorcerer put it "I am already figureing out my next build anyway since we keep dieing"